Movie review: Frozen’ will melt your heart

Wednesday

Feb 26, 2014 at 10:33 AMFeb 26, 2014 at 10:33 AM

By Al AlexanderMore Content Now

Disney pretty much ices the best-animation Oscar with “Frozen,” its bone-chillingly good tale of sisters doin’ it for themselves. Set in a magical Scandinavian winter wonderland where snowmen talk and an ice queen melts your heart, “Frozen” pushes all the right buttons in telling a fitfully charming, unabashedly manipulative story aimed directly at your cockles. It’s the ultimate snow job, but you don’t care. In fact, don’t be surprised if you exuberantly reciprocate by singing “let ‘em snow, let ‘em snow, let ‘em snow.” Or at least you will when you’re not singing along with the flick’s half-dozen original, Broadway-ready tunes, including the scintillating “Let It Go,” which, like the film, is a frontrunner for an Academy Award.

That illustrious ditty by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and her husband, Robert Lopez (“The Book of Mormon”), is made even more dynamic when sung by Tony-winner Idina Menzel (“Rent,” “Wicked”), whose deeply resonate voice never fails to stir goose bumps in the role of Elsa, a gentle soul born with the curse of sorcery. With a flick of her wrist, she can summon blizzards, create opulent ice sculptures and make snowmen talk. But she also unintentionally poses an ominous threat to her adoring younger sister Anna (voice of Kristen Bell) and the surrounding arctic kingdom their over-protective parents rule. So, for the well-being of all, the king and queen keep their lovely daughters locked away behind castle doors.

It’s a Pandora’s Box the rules of royalty demand be opened once Elsa becomes old enough to be dubbed queen. From that point on, watch out, because everyone, including Elsa, quickly becomes an endangered species. And the only one who can save the perpetually wintery realm is Anna.

OK, the story, penned by co-director Jennifer Lee (“Wreck-It-Ralph”), is a tad rote, but right in the wheelhouse of Disney’s love of petite princesses on big adventures. We even get a couple of potential Prince Charmings in a suave aristocrat, Hans (Santino Fontana), and a burly ice merchant, Kristoff (Jonathan Groff). But what truly saves the day is the jaw-dropping 3-D computer animation. It simply sends the wow factor through the roof, as the team of Disney artists, overseen by Lee and her co-director, Chris Buck (“Tarzan”), create one dazzling sequence after another. Most amazing, is their realistic depictions of snow and ice. It’s so beautiful to behold, it will literally bring tears to your eyes, particularly in the film’s signature sequence, when Elsa flees the castle and creates a grandiose ice palace for herself to hide away, deep in the snow-covered mountains of Norway. It’s set to the aforementioned tune, “Let It Go,” and it’s the perfect melding of spectacular animation set to a catchy, magnificently sung song. For a moment, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. That’s how striking a moment it becomes.

It quickly puts every other animated film from this year to shame. And unlike all those pretenders to the throne, “Frozen” is a comedy that is actually funny, as well as endearing. Much of the credit for that goes to the terrific voice work supplied by Bell (Wait until you hear her sing!) and Menzel, the multi-Tony-winner, who never met a note she couldn’t knock out of the park. But the voice that will have everyone buzzing is that of Josh Gad, who steals every scene he’s in as Olaf, the walking, talking snowman who naively dreams of basking in the summer sun. Gad not only is a great singer, evidenced by his Tony nomination for “The Book of Mormon,” but also a devastatingly hilarious comedian, with impeccable timing and a rare ability to make you fall madly in love with his character. The animators have a ball with Olaf, too, regularly scattering the three balls of snow that make up his head and torso in all sorts of crazy arrangements. Ditto for his carrot nose, which keeps bouncing back and forth through his icy skull like the tip of a retractable pen. I swear it’s the hardest I’ve laughed all year. And there’s nary a line in which Gad fails to draw at least a chuckle. Kids will adore his Olaf and parents will thank their lucky stars he’s there to divert attention from an otherwise predictable story about young women learning to assert themselves.

Loosely based on Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Snow Queen,” the script for “Frozen” is a bit too scatterbrained to be counted among the Disney/Pixar elite, especially when it comes to Anna, who is supposedly fiercely independent, but - thanks to the writers - still must have a man by her side at nearly every turn. In fact, the movie could have completely jettisoned Hans and Kristoff without suffering a bit. But despite the reluctance to put two strong female characters front and center, the film never wavers when it comes to depicting the unconditional love shared by sisters. It’s a sweet message, delivered movingly through animation that’s utterly human.